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I was on holiday last week, enjoying the almost total lack of sun, and having a week long geekasm at theE3 coverage. Imagine my surprise, then, to come back to work at Escape to discover hardly a mention of all that awesomeness on the blog. This is not, I thought to myself, acceptable. So have a peek at this!

Once again, I’m going to have to promote how great a developer Valve is by showing you another presentation that I found on their website. I know I have already showcased some of their expertise in a post a couple of days ago but I think this presentation is equally as impressive as the last one.

When you consider the people who work in animation and VFX, many are guilty of picturing the stereotype in their minds; a bunch of geeky men working in a cramped computer room to produce the stunning images we see on screen. And I write to you now, with a sigh of relief, knowing that this is actually not the case. The Visual Effects Society (VES) has uploaded a video to their website which shows the NAB 2012 panel, consisting of five women, sharing their views, opinions and experiences working in the industry. The panel includes: questions from Randi Altman with answers from Jenny Fulle, Gabby Gourrier, Joni Jacobson, Jody Madden and Sarah McGrail.

If you're anything like me, you'll have a favourite developer, and mine just happens to be Valve. For those of you who don’t know Valve, it's an entertainment software and technology company that has been around since 1996. Since its beginning, it has produced an overwhelming amount of award winning games, with the most recent including Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, Portal 1 & 2, Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike. It is also the developer of leading-edge technologies including game engine Source, and premier online gaming platform Steam.

To celebrate our collaboration with Assimilate, Escape Studios are hosting a BBQ event with our friends at Assimilate. This is a hugely exclusive event to introduce the London VFX scene to Assimilate’s post-production toolkit SCRATCH and SCRATCH Lab. And we'd like to invite you! But this is no ordinary BBQ folks, vegetarians beware and if you are expecting a Birds Eye burger think again... this is an Assimilate 'steak extravaganza'.

After a previous visit to Double Negative, James Dower and his class mates really got a taste for the high standard of work that DNeg set. And on this, their second visit, they were all keen to get some professional feedback for their own VFX Production projects.

The other day I was searching for an online "time waster" game during my journey home. I don’t like signing up to free gaming websites so I was thrilled to see that the old classic Snake was free to play online. For those of you who don’t know (rare, but they’re out there) Snake was a game that featured on the old Nokia phones, back in the day when phones were used for texts and calls only.

The Softimage Creatives launch event went ahead on May 29th as planned, and it was nothing short of amazing. There was an incredible turn out of XSI enthusiasts, which confirms to us all that the community of users is still very much alive. Over 150 people squeezed into Jerusalem Bar on Rathbone Place to celebrate the launch of the London Softimage user group, and among those were visitors who travelled from Ireland and the continent. It’s this dedication to the cause that will undoubtedly help make the independent Softimage user group a real success, and I’m sure it has proved to the SiC founders that their efforts have not been in vain.

We know it has been a long time coming but we finally managed to get our hands on some insider info into the HBO series Game of Thrones. The second season has been just as intense and enthralling as the first and with the production for the third season renewed just two days after the second series aired, we hope to see a lot more of Westeros soon!

Want to introduce yourself to some of the fundamental techniques of compositing? Well now you can. The lovely Simon Richardson, compositing escapee and one of our esteemed Studio Assistants here at Escape, has put together a free NUKE tutorial that will demonstrate exactly that. This short video will walk you through a basic CG rebuild inside NUKE, using Maya’s Mental Ray passes. For anyone starting out using this software, it’s a great insight into the processes behind building a shot ready for edit.

The Foundry are planning on launching a range of new online live product demos this summer, set to be a regular feature on The Foundry website. But before anything is set in stone they want to know what YOU want to hear about!

Do you have a high-quality paper that demonstrates research or work related to media production? If the answer is yes, then now is the time to present it at CVMP 2012. The Best Student Paper prize is being sponsored by Google and the award is a very substantial £2,000.

I came across this video the other day and as well as making me laugh (for quite some time...) it got me thinking. How many film / cinema buff type people exist out there who are secret VFX stars in the making? I'm talking about the naturals here, the people you go to the cinema with who appreciate the stuff that doesn't even cross your mind, or the friend who is an absolute Playstation wizzard. Sometimes, putting two and two together doesn't come easily and associating your love of film or great visual trickery with a career are poles apart. Or sometimes for whatever reason it just isn't possible. Because of family or work commitments maybe becoming the person who's sat behind the cinema screen, rather than someone who's watching it just wasn't an option. So watch the video let us know if the bear is familiar!

The Visual Effects Society (VES) are holding their annual worldwide VFX career fair this year in LA, New York, Montreal, San Francisco and London. This daylong event brings together some of the biggest names in the business and aims to inform, educate and employ the VFX community.

Doing a VFX course can lead your career in many directions. For many of our students it has been the launching pad for a career in post-production, for film, TV and commercials. Many students have also gone on to work in other areas such as games and architectural visualisation. We teach the fundamentals and practicalities of working in CG, paving the way for what you will eventually specialise in.